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Defining Inerrancy

John 8:14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true...

Is Jesus being self-contradictory here? Let's look at the facts:

The Greek of 5:31 is either a conditional of present reality or a
future-more-vivid construction, having the initial ei and the
particle an joined together by crasis for ean . The
verb marturo is either present active indicative or present active
subjunctive.

The pronoun ego , "I", is emphatic.

In Robertson's A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light
of Historical Research , page 1018, he expresses the conditional
statement in 5:31 is "If perchance I bear witness."

Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (p. 471) claims that
given the present tense of
eimi in the apodosis of 5:31, it seems to be the best option
that Jesus "is not saying that it is probable that he wil bear testimony
about himself. Rather, he is simply stating a supposition." This is what
is termed a "fifth-class condition" in Wallace's grammar.

Now with these facts in tow we can examine 5:31. The verse states: "If
I [and only I -- the pronoun is emphatic] bear witness of myself
[a possibility but not a given]..." The context indicates that
Jesus is here discussing the hopelessness of a man's testimony being accepted
on itself alone.

Recall Deut 19:15, where two or three witnesses are required
for acceptance of a testimony. Jesus seems to be stating that the Jews won't
find his witness true, because the Jews think that Jesus is alone testifying
concerning Himself. Jesus is not at all stating that in reality His witness
is not true: He is God and the very incarnation of truth; Jesus is merely
acknowledging what the Jews are or might be thinking. Jesus knows that His
witness is
true, for in reality it is -- but the Jews fail to recognize that "another
bears witness" in 5:32, clearly a reference to God the Father.

Jesus knows
that His testimony is true because it is supported by Jesus Himself and
the Father who sent him, fulfilling Deut 19:5. But the Jews do not
recognize that the Father also bears witness to Jesus. This is the most
natural exegesis of 5:31-2.

The above is my solution, and seems natural. A check of various commentaries
on John, such as RCH Lenski's The Interpretation of St. John's Gospel
(pp. 402-3), Leon Morris' revised The Gospel of John , pp. 287-8
(see also the fascinating footnotes there), and William Hendriksen's
New Testament Commentary volume on John, pp. 205-7, yields general
agreement on my interpretation, which really isn't "mine" as I am sure
that it is natural enough to suggest itself to any serious reader.

Now we exegete 8:14, where Jesus again speaks to the Pharisees, stating
(NIV) "Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I
know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I
come from or where I am going." Here the interpretation is self-evident.
Whereas in 5:31 the natural context was of Jesus' self-testimony's validity
with respect to the minds
of the Jews, His testimony, being perceived as being solitary
by the Jews would not be valid to the Jews. On the other
hand, here in 8:14
he states that his self-witness is true with respect to reality .
Jesus
is also stating that the Pharisees are not in a position to judge the truth
of Jesus' testimony because they do not know where he came from or where
he was going.

I quote Morris (pages 390-1), who seconds this notion: "In 5:31 He [Jesus]
has said , `If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true,' by which
he meant that his witness had to be supported to be accepted. There he agreed
with the Pharisees that unsupported testimony has no legal value. He did not
mean that his words were not in fact true. They were true. But if his
testimony was unsupported it was not to be received. Here he has two points
to make: the one is that he is qualified to bear witness though his enemies
are not, and the other that in any case his testimony is not unsupported.
The Father bears witness of him. Jesus is contrasting himself with the
Pharisees. He knows both his origin and his destination, but they know
neither. They are not in a position to comment on his witness. They are
totally unaware of the great heavenly verities." Again, see the interesting
footnotes on those pages.

Keeping these solid exegeses of the two verses, we see that there is really no case for asserting that
Jesus is contradicting Himself.